Abstract

Two-dimensional simulations of ion beam driven fast ignition are presented. Ignition energies of protons with Maxwellian spectrum and carbon ions with quasimonoenergetic and Maxwellianenergy distributions are evaluated. The effect of the coronal plasma surrounding the compressed deuterium-tritium is studied for three different fuel density distributions. It is found that quasimonoenergetic ions have better coupling with the compressed deuterium-tritium and substantially lower ignition energies. Comparison of quasimonoenergetic carbon ions and relativistic electrons as ignitor beams shows similar laser energy requirements, provided that a laser to quasimonoenergetic carbon ion conversion efficiency around 10% can be achieved.

Received 19 May 2009Accepted 01 September 2009Published online 07 October 2009

Acknowledgments:

One of the authors (J.J.H.) would like to thank the fruitful discussions and the hospitality of the P-24 group of LANL. M.T. has been supported by a contract of the Spanish Ministry of Education (Ramón y Cajal 2007-0447). This work was partially supported by the Research Grant Nos. ENE2006-06339 and CAC-2007-013 of the Spanish Ministry of Education and by the IFE Keep-in-touch Activities of EURATOM.